


Expanding upon Some Little Undertale AU Ideas

by Echo (Ech0_0f_The_Past)



Category: Undertale, Undertale AUs - Fandom
Genre: And violence, But Probably Not in a Good Way, Drabble Collection, Multi, Prompt Fic, Well Maybe Sometimes, but nothing explict, some Non-Con elements, there's a lot going on, there's so much angst, this will not be fluffy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 16,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27174778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ech0_0f_The_Past/pseuds/Echo
Summary: I found this work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26618983 and decided to use the prompts to create little drabbles and see what my twisted mind could conjure up. This is the result.
Relationships: And Most of This is One-Sided, Lots of Different Characters, Unhealthy Relationships - Relationship, for the most part - Relationship
Comments: 70
Kudos: 94





	1. Disadvantage (Ink x Reaper)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Its_cringe_but_I_love_it](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_cringe_but_I_love_it/gifts).



> The prompt for this chapter:
> 
> Reaper's touch doesn't kill Ink as it would with other beings, since Ink is immortal. Instead it makes him so immensely weak that he can't speak or move on his own, for a limited amount of time.  
> Of course Reaper is absolutely delighted upon finding out what effects his touch has on his lover. Well, soon-to-be lover.

" _Inky, love, where are you?_ "

He cowered in the corner of the closet, his hands clasped over his mouth and his whole body shaking. Curse the other for getting home so much earlier than expected, now Ink's carefully crafted escape plan was rendered absolutely useless! Though, he still had the knife he'd snatched from the kitchen while doing the dishes the other day, maybe he could do _something_ with it? Couldn't kill himself or Reaper, no, but he could still injure the other God, so maybe there was still a chance--!

"Oh, Inky, here you are! Hiding in the closet again? Hehe, I love your predictability! Makes catching you and keeping you close so much easier for me~!" Reaper's disgusting voice cooed from just outside the partially open sliding door to the cramped space, one of his hollow, blank eyelights peeking through the gap and part of his too-wide, too-bright smile visible even from Ink's mostly secluded and covered position on the floor, surrounded by the lower halves of Reaper's spare cloaks.

Ink, of course, panicked immediately, the only thing on his mind was the desperate mantra he'd been repeating to himself for the past...three months, now? Stars, had it already been that long since he'd been dragged to Reaper's home and locked away, unable to signal for help or escape? Shaking those thoughts off, Ink re-focused back on his mantra, his shaky, white eyelights fixed squarely on what he could see of Reaper as he produced the kitchen knife from his inventory and held it towards the black-cloaked God of Death with horribly shaking hands. For a soulless monster, some deep, uncaring part of Ink mused, he sure seemed scared right now.

"D-Don't you dare t-touch me, Reaper. I'll stab you i-if you even try it, I swear!" Ink weakly declared, his voice wavering and shaking almost as badly as his hands were, every bone that made up his small body poised to uncoil like a spring and bolt from the closet the moment he got the chance.

But Reaper never gave him that chance. With that sickeningly wide smile still in place, the taller God smoothly pushed the door open a little wider, producing just enough of an opening for his slightly bigger body to fit through. With a soft chuckle of delight or perhaps madness, he glided silently into the space, steadily closing the distance between himself and an increasingly panicked Ink, who shrank back at his approach, wildly slashing at him with the knife.

"Don't!!" Ink screeched as Reaper gripped the blade of the knife and yanked it out of Ink's tremulous grip, tossing it aside carelessly and coming to land on the floor in front of his lovely little artist, his bare feet clacking slightly against the wooden floorboards. 

"Inky, darling, you shouldn't play with knives," Reaper said softly, soothingly, one hand already reaching for Ink's face. The smaller skeleton attempted to bolt away, tears streaming down his cheekbones, but Reaper was faster and a moment later, he'd successfully gripped Ink's wrists with one hand, the other gently cupping Ink's face as the artistic god sagged in Reaper's grip at once, tears still streaming down his face and dripping to the floor below.

"...pl-ple...please just...l-let me go home..." Ink mumbled, his words slurring a bit as unnatural exhaustion took over his body and he fell completely limp, unable to do anything more than watch as Reaper picked him up easily and cradled him close, gently kissing the tears away and humming softly in delight as he floated off the ground once more and left the closet, kicking it shut behind them.

"Silly, you **are** home! Now, I think you're just under too much stress again, Inky. Let's cuddle for a while, watch your favorite movie, share some snacks...just let yourself relax completely! After all, as long as you're with me, you'll be completely safe!" Reaper decided, heading towards the stairs.

Ink just lay limp in his arms, shutting his sockets and trying to pretend that he was anywhere but here, praying for a way out of this hell and using what little hope he had left to start planning escape again.

Attempt number 17 might go better, right?


	2. A Broken Tool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter:
> 
> Cross joins Nightmare and his gang.  
> His self-confidence is generally low to begin with, but seeing as he can't help the gang spread negativity since he can't/doesn't kill, this leads to him developing a lot of self hatred for ''not being a good tool''.
> 
> In the end, the solution he comes up with to ''become useful'' is to corrupt his own code and therefore be forever stuck as a mindless husk, blindly following commands. Nightmare and the others realize too late what kinds of negative feelings Cross had.

Cross sat alone in his room, shaking heavily as he panted a bit, clutching at his pounding soul, his eyesockets wide and his eyelights unfocused and fuzzy, shaking a bit in his skull as memories played before his vision, taunting him mercilessly.

The soft taps at his door and the murmuring voice asking him to come outside and if he was okay was completely ignored in favor of the monochrome skeleton focusing entirely on the horrible mistakes he’d made barely twenty minutes before this point…

_ The battle was intense, as always, and he’d been caught up in the action, dodging and swinging as normal, but never dealing any fatal wounds out to those he went up against… _

_ And then he’d heard Killer’s voice, calling out for assistance, and since he’d been the closest, he’d raced over to his friend’s aid-- _

_ And then… _

_ Then the insignia had caught his eye and that cursed training from the far-distant past-- _

Cross snapped out of the reverie a little bit as a strangled sob forced itself out of his throat, guilt gnawing away at him unceasingly, causing him to grip at his shirt tightly and shiver yet again, purple tears gathering in the corners of his eyes again.

“I-I’m sorry…” he mumbled, directed at the person he’d been unable to properly protect because of his own stupid inhibitions when it came to harming and killing others. They’d been drilled into him for so many years while he’d been training to be a royal guard, but now those tactics and mantras were just getting in the way, much as his own morality always had.

_ Just his luck that the monster Killer was having trouble dealing with was a royal guard in this AU, the familiar insignia on their chest armor making long-forgotten memories and mannerisms resurface, sending Cross reeling from the shock and making his thoughts jumble between past and present, making him half-turn on Killer, his own friend and teammate, and he’d nearly-- _

He curled in on himself, clutching at his own arm bones tightly enough to cause tiny cracks to form in them, though he didn’t seem to care. He deserved the pain and the crushing pressure of guilt, after all, for what he’d done, putting Killer’s life on the line like that. Thank goodness Nightmare had come by in time to grab both of them and retreat, so Killer had only suffered moderate injury and Cross himself hadn’t had time to do anything to him. That still didn’t make the situation anywhere  _ close _ to okay, though, and he knew that. 

“I...I shouldn’t have let my stupid memories get to me,” he hissed, digging his phalanges into his ulnas a little more severely, his head hanging a bit lower. “I, heh, shouldn’t e-even have hesitated for a moment there, or lost focus, or--stars, I shouldn’t have  **thought** at all, just done what needed to be done.” As he said the words, a horrible idea began to form in Cross’s mind...what if he stopped having independent thoughts? What if he stopped being himself, and just transformed into a mindless drone? He was only a tool anyways, no matter what Nightmare and the others said, so why not act the part and stop pretending that his existence mattered outside of battle or chores around the castle?

Wearily, he let go of his own arms, ignoring the purple blood slowly dripping from the self-inflicted injuries, and brought out his soul. Cross had learned a long time ago, from

someone he didn’t want to remember, how to edit his own code. If he could lock his emotions away permanently, that would ensure that he’d be the perfect tool for Nightmare and he wouldn’t mess up anything else ever again. A tiny, forced smile made its way onto his face as he reached towards his soul, ready to make this happen--

And then the door to his room slammed open, and Nightmare stood before him, tentacles waving behind him and betraying the dark being’s...worry? Yes, his singular eyelight was fixed on Cross, and his expression was that of a stressed-out and frantic parent, a look Cross was very, very used to seeing on the leader’s face when dealing with him especially.

“Cross. Put your soul away.” That was clearly an order, yet Cross didn’t comply, just continued to hold it out in front of him and silently cry, his hands steady and unfaltering even as the rest of him shook violently.

“Sorry, boss, no can do. I have to fix it first, can’t h-have what happened earlier today repeat itself, right? Heh...don’t worry, I can become a good tool, I can fix myself, fix my mistakes. I’ll make it up to all of you!” he rambled, his fingers reaching upwards towards the heart floating serenely in his hands and threatening to grab it, which would send him into editorial mode.

A tentacle whipped across the room, wrapping securely around Cross’s wrists and yanking his hands down and away from his soul, keeping him from doing what needed to be done and sending the magical organ back into his ribcage. 

“Cross. Listen carefully here. You are  _ not _ a tool, you are  _ not _ broken in any way, and I  **_will not tolerate_ ** that kind of self-editing from any of my team’s members, and especially not from you. Do I make myself clear?”

Cross’s tears redoubled, and he resumed sobbing brokenly, not even registering Nightmare’s steady approach to his bedside. “I don’t understand...I’m j-just a tool, so why can’t you let me fix what’s been broken? Stars, I can’t do anything right...I couldn’t even protect Killer, I can’t help you guys s-spread negativity because I can’t b-bring myself to kill...Why?! Why do you still keep me around if I’m useless--?!”

Cross cut himself off thanks to shock as Nightmare hugged him suddenly, and gently started stroking his back. “Cross. You are not useless. You are still a massive asset to our team, even though you don’t kill. In fact, the victims that we leave alive after battles always end up causing and spreading even more negativity, so it’s a good thing.” The leader continued to hold his youngest team member close, not relenting in his kind actions for even a moment. “You need to understand that you are not a tool, Cross. You are a  _ living, breathing monster _ with thoughts and aspirations and you are special to us. If you edited your code and took that personality of yours away for good...we would be devastated. So please, never scare us like that again.”

Cross finally hugged Nightmare back, burying his face into the other’s shoulder and letting his tears flow freely, feeling so much guilt and sorrow, but also relief that someone stopped him before he did something irreversible. “Okay...I’ll try not to do that again.”  
  


“And come to us if you start feeling such strong guilt or other negative emotions, alright? I don’t know how you were able to cloak them from me, but that has to stop. Repression isn’t going to help anything.” Pulling back a bit, Nightmare sadly smiled down at Cross, calmly standing up and using his tentacles to carry the other skeleton out into the hallway.

“Now come on, the others are waiting for us. It’s movie night, if you recall, and I believe it’s your turn to pick the movie.”

Cross smiled weakly and nodded, his thoughts whirling dramatically. “Alright. And...thanks, Nightmare, for, um...stepping in.”

"It's what I'm here for," was the reply, and Nightmare held Cross just a little closer as they turned the corner and disappeared from view.


	3. 'Fixed' Creator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter:
> 
> Error has had enough with Ink and his Star Sh**s, which is why he decides to use his code manipulating abilities to change Ink’s code/personality to a destructive one and morph him into a destroyer, much like Error himself is.
> 
> \-- I changed this one up a bit, deciding that simply changing Ink over using only code manipulation was too easy, hope that's okay! --

Ink cursed under his breath as another cluster of strings came shooting right next to his face, nearly hitting him this time. Stars, how long had he and Error been fighting for by this point? At least a few hours, based on Ink’s own messy attacks and defenses. and the fact that he’d already forgotten what he and Error were fighting about in the first place.

“Hey, buddy, can we call a truce yet?” Ink called out after dodging a couple more well-executed attacks. This was a bit worrying, to be honest, since Error wasn’t usually this persistent. What, was the glitch going to try and kill him again or something? Man, he must have  _ really  _ pushed Error’s buttons today! 

“ ~~ Absolutely not! Not until I get what I came here for! ~~ “ Error shouted back, aiming a few Gaster Blaster beams at Ink’s feet, making the artist jump backwards, though he was still having a bit of a hard time dodging, his energy clearly low. “ ~~ Want me to leave faster? Then just surrender! It'll save us both a lot of time, here! ~~ "

Ink just laughed, assuming that Error was trying to start up some semi-friendly banter in the middle of battle, as Ink usually did. “No way, Ruru!” he called over to the furious glitch with a giggle as he ducked under another wave of strings. “I’d never surrender unless I became as insane as you are!” Ink expected Error to retort with something about how Ink was clearly crazier than him or something along those lines, but instead the dark skeleton went strangely silent, a bit of an odd light in his eyelights now.

“ ~~ I see, ~~ “ was all that Error ended up saying, before he unexpectedly teleported, calling off all of his attacks in the process and leaving Ink alone on the torn-up battlefield to try and pick up the pieces of this half-destroyed AU. 

Ink shrugged after Error vanished, kneeling over with his hands on his knees as he panted for breath, trying to recover from the rigorous pace his frenemy had set for their battle this time. “Gosh, Error...really weren’t going easy on me today, huh? Probably planning something big, huh?”

As Error reappeared behind the Protector and slammed a bone construct on the back of the other’s skull, knocking him out, the last thing the little artist heard him say was: " ~~ Oh, you have  _ no _ idea, Ink. ~~ "

* * *

Ink slowly stirred back to wakefulness, feeling like his skull was on fire and his body aching, both from the battle and from the fact that his arms and legs were tightly bound in blue strings, most likely. He hadn't bothered to open his sockets yet, guessing that he was probably in a cell in Nightmare's castle or something like that. Probably getting used for bait in another trap against the remaining two Star Sanses, right? Yet, as Ink squirmed against the ground a little, the brightness of his surroundings hit him, since he could see light even through his closed sockets. Besides, this place couldn't be Nighty's dungeon, it wasn't frigid enough to be that cursed place. So where--

Ink made a grave mistake and opened his eyes.

White. Everywhere around him, nothing but white, blank, _oh stars no it's nothing but e m p t i n e s s --_

A strangled sound left Ink's non-existent throat as he took in his current predicament. Oh gods no, he was in the Anti-Void, unable to properly move and completely alone...wait, no, there was someone approaching from off to the side! Error!! Thank goodness, he was here to help, surely, right? This had to be a joke, right?

"E-Error, hey buddy, I'm really glad to see ya, haha, um, could you please let me go home now? Whatever prank you were pulling here, y-you really got me good! Yeah, uh, g-good joke, but I'm really going to be able to appreciate it better when I'm not, ya know, panicking--"

It didn't seem like the glitch could even hear him. With a soft snap of his fingers, an odd pressure bloomed in Ink's chest and his eyesockets widened exponentially as Error produced a white, upside-down heart from within Ink's chest, bound tightly into his ribcage and connected to him by slightly lighter blue strings than he'd seen Error use before. Seemingly satisfied by whatever he was seeing in the soul itself, Error let it go and the organ floated back into Ink's chest, beating a little too fast to be healthy as the Protector struggled to understand what was happening here.

"Hey, Error, c-can ya please tell me what you're trying to do, here? This is all really hecking freaky and I d-don't want to be a part of this anymore," Ink tried, shaking as he glanced down at himself and finally registered that his usual clothes were gone, replaced with--oh stars-- _more_ white. Even the fancy, black tattoos across his bones were hidden by white, and that only left Ink the option to look at the ceiling (which in this area had been stripped of blue strings and souls, so no helpful things to distract himself with here), or Error himself, who was still standing in front of the trapped artist, arms folded loosely across his chest and his expression neutral. Bored, even.

It took a while for Ink to calm down and the soul that was his but also not to stop trying to pound its way out of his chest. Finally, after all of that, Error spoke:

" ~~Welcome to the Anti-Void. You're staying here for a while, alone. You're not going to get rescued, nor will you be able to save yourself. That soul in your chest is only going to be there temporarily, so don't get attached to it or anything. I have all of your stuff stored away; you'll get it back eventually, I promise.~~ " After simply stating the facts of the situation, Error turned to leave, causing poor Ink to panic immediately.

"Wait, hold on, don't go!! What do you mean I'm staying here for a while? How long is a while?! And where'd you get this soul?? Is it going to be returned to its original owner, or are they dust? Speaking of Dust, does Nightmare know about this? And why keep my stuff?! When do I get it back--no-- _how_ do I get it back?? Error!!" 

The Destroyer ignored Ink's shouts, calmly continuing to walk away without even a backward glance. He really hated how obnoxious Ink was on a good day, but at least he'd been sure to stock up on earplugs well in advance of this moment. After all, if Ink were going to be his unwilling roommate for a while, Error already knew that he'd try to be as annoying as possible to make Error let him go. Not this time, though. Not until everything was just right.

Now, all Error had to do was play the waiting game. He wasn't known for being patient, but he'd make an exception this time, simply because the end result would be worth it.

* * *

It took months.

Error nearly lost it at a couple of points and almost stormed over to Ink to shout and rage at him, punch the idiot right in the face and tell him to 'shut up already--' but he held himself back, going to an empty AU like Dusttale and screaming at the sky instead, frustrated that the Protector was so impossibly hardy and wasn't broken yet.

And then, finally, it happened. Ink went quiet. The artist _never_ shut up, so this was a breakthrough as far as Error was concerned. Finally, he could stop wearing earplugs 24/7 and watch Undernovela in peace. He kept an eyesocket on Ink from a distance starting on the day that the Protector's obnoxious voice finally went quiet, making sure that he wasn't trying to lull Error into a false sense of security or something, acting like a broken soul simply to lash out at him the moment that he dropped his guard, and Ink didn't seem to be acting.

Waiting until a point in time where Ink fell asleep, Error calmly took the soul away from Ink and destroyed it, since it had fulfilled its purpose. He'd seen glitches popping up on Ink's body now and again, which meant he was close to the end of this torture and that corruption had taken hold of the artist's body for good. This meant that Ink could probably hear the voices too, now, and would likely never fully recover his sanity from this experience. 

Ink, himself, was getting slowly used to the color white, the once colorful and bubbly skeleton now reduced to a basically catatonic state as his emotions (which the soul that had been basically transplanted into his body) faded and waned away. By the end of the 7th month of imprisonment, Ink could barely feel anything, and his eyelights were blank, white orbs in the hollow black wells of his sockets. Time for Error to make his final move of this multi-step plan.

His prisoner looked up in shock as Error walked over to him, keeping a steady pace and a neutral expression, just like the last time the artist had seen him. In Error's arms were Ink's possessions from when he'd first captured him, Broomie, Ink's sash of vials, his original clothes--everything. Ink's eyelights gained a spark of light for a moment, but it quickly died away again. After all, why would Error actually keep his promise? He'd probably only brought these things here to torment Ink further, by destroying his prized possessions right in front of him--

Error stood before Ink, setting the items into a neat pile between them and clearing his throat. Ink's whole being was laser-focused on Error, drinking in his appearance since he was covered in colors and the only living being he'd seen in what felt like an eternity.

" ~~Do you want to get your freedom back, Ink? Do you want me to keep my promise to you and give your stuff back?~~ " he asked calmly, and Ink instantly nodded his head, his voice too broken right now to use properly. Of course he wanted his freedom and items back!! What did Error take him for?!

" ~~Then I'll need you to promise me something back, Ink. Promise that you'll help me destroy your cursed creations from here on out, and we can get out of here for a while. I'm sure you're tired of the white, and the blankness, and the _loneliness_ , right?~~"

Ink froze up, his mind working in overdrive. But wasn't he supposed to protect his creations? But then again, getting away from this place was one of the few things that actually mattered to him right now, so...

"...o-okay...I p-p-promise. I'll help you d-destroy from now o-on," Ink choked out, and Error grinned. It was not a nice grin, but at least he was kind enough to let Ink's binds finally disappear and help his former enemy and newfound ally get dressed for his first outing in almost a year.

He even carried Ink to a version of Dusttale from the Anti-Void and helped him remember what certain objects were. It would have been a touching scene if Ink didn't coat certain objects in acidic paint using Broomie, helping bring the place down around them.

The Protector was no more.


	4. Love Note

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter:
> 
> Error finds a seemingly bland notebook, though he soon discovers it's a special book: if one writes another's name in the book, that person will fall in love with them, until their name is erased.
> 
> Time to cause some chaos~

The last thing Error expected to find in the remnants of the AU he’d just finished destroying, as he was cleaning up extra code, was a medium-sized, cherry-red, unremarkable looking notebook. Raising a bonebrow, the Destroyer knelt beside the discarded item, looking it over in case Ink were trying to pull something again by leaving a prop item in an AU that would cause something unpleasant to happen to Error when he’d interact with it.

Not sensing Ink’s magic in the item’s code after a moment’s investigation--though he did sense an unfamiliar presence’s magic there, which still set off some alarm bells in his head--Error shrugged and picked up the book to investigate it a little further back in the safety of the Anti-Void. The moment that the item was in his hands, however…

“Oh thank the _stars_ , someone finally decided to grab it! I thought for sure everyone would just ignore it and I’d be stuck in there forever, thank you so much!!” a concerningly close voice began to blabber, causing Error to jump back in alarm, glancing all around himself suspiciously for the owner of the voice in question, swearing under his breath.

When he finally laid his eyelights on the being in question, the Destroyer stared at them in shock. Floating a couple of feet off the ground thanks to the little, incorporeal wings on his shoes, was a _tiny_ skeleton dressed in a fairly standard Sans-type outfit: a pink sweater under a white hoodie, both with short sleeves for some reason, a pair of black shorts without the traditional colored stripe down the sides, pink socks barely peeking over the edges of his tri-colored winged sneakers, and finished off with the longest red scarf Error had ever seen, which had mirrored golden inverted heart designs on each end of its massive (probably three-foot) length.

The stranger beamed at Error once he realized that he’d gained the other’s full attention, finally shutting his mouth and content to wave at the glitching skeleton before him instead, his upside-down, heart-shaped eyelights sparkling with joy. Error took a moment to try and make sense of what was happening, glancing between the being in front of himself and the book a few times, struggling to figure out what the connection there was. “ ~~...hi?~~ ” he finally tried after a moment, his head still spinning a bit. He’d have to have a long stint of relaxing in the Anti-Void with a marathon of Undernovela after this nonsense was dealt with, that’s for sure. “ ~~Who and what are you? Another abomination Ink recruited to torment me?~~ ”  


“Oh, not at all! I’m actually a guardian, at least I believe that’s the right term? I’m not affiliated with the Star Sanses in any way, so don’t worry about this being a prank by Ink or something along those lines, hehe!” the smaller skeleton answered brightly, somehow bouncing in place while still hovering in mid-air. If he weren’t so annoying, Error would likely have been a bit impressed by the fact that he’d been able to pull something like that off. “I’m Love Sans, the physical embodiment of that wonderful feeling! I’m the one that helps bring monsters and humans their significant others--though sometimes I accidentally mess up and end up hurting people. Love isn’t a purely positive thing, after all, but I do my best!” It was a little dizzying watching Love talk, since he seemed to speak with his entire body at once, some part of him moving with every word he uttered. “Or at least, that’s supposed to be my job. But my brother of sorts, Hate, he stole the capsules I use to store excess love and power my weapon and somehow bound my consciousness to that notebook, so I can’t do my job anymore!” Love’s entire body drooped, the tiny skeleton’s eyelights turning grey in distress as he finally glanced back up at Error, half to gauge his reaction to this information, and half to make sure he’d been paying attention. Error didn’t seem like the patient type.

Said destructive glitch looked unimpressed, to say the least. “ ~~And why should I care? Looks like this is your own fault for being a weakling,~~ ” he answered blandly, getting ready to tear the notebook apart with his strings, before Love shot forward through the air and tried to tug the book away from Error, though the smaller’s hands went right through the object, as incorporeal as the wings on his shoes. That gave Error pause, as did the way that Love’s body was shaking. The little guy was  _ terrified _ . Usually, Error wouldn’t care about others’ feelings and would delete them without a second thought, but when it came to outcodes like Love undoubtedly was, matters had to be handled more delicately. Sighing in defeat, Error dismissed his strings, instead opening a portal to the Anti-Void and walking through, feeling Love’s ghostly form float in behind him. “ ~~Before you say anything, kid, I’m not going to help you. I’m a ‘bad guy,’ that’s not really my thing. You’re lucky that I don’t want to incur the wrath of Ink and Nightmare simultaneously by deleting you or you’d be dead already.~~ ”

Love sputtered in shock as a response, trying to conjure up the words to convince Error to aid him. “Listen, i-if you don’t, um, help me out with my job, I’ll be stuck in the book forever and--and you’ll have to deal with me in your, ah, personal space forever!!” he tried, clearly unused to being threatening in any way whatsoever.

The very idea seemed to make Error’s already thin thread of patience snap entirely, as he whirled around to face his unintended guest with brightly glowing eyelights filled with rage. Poor Love shrank back a bit, clearly unused to such blatant hostility directed at him by anyone but Hate. “ ~~Listen, brat, I am~~ ~~_ not _ ~~ ~~in the mood to do anything but stay in here for the rest of the day. I am exhausted and the idea of running around AUs and playing matchmaker is sounding less and less appealing by the moment. At this point, I’m tempted to tear this stupid thing--~~ ” here he shook the notebook viciously, making Love wince and curl into himself slightly, “ ~~\--to pieces and be done with you.~~ ”

“You wouldn’t have to leave this place to take up my role temporarily and break me free of the book!” Love cried out in desperation, squeezing his sockets shut and waiting for the noise of tearing pages and crinkling cardboard, but to his surprise and immense relief, he was met with silence. Cracking one socket open, Love saw that Error had moved a little closer to him, uncertain, holding the book like he was about to open it but hesitant to do so. “ ~~Explain,~~ ” was all that the black-boned skeleton in front of him said, and Love was only too happy to do so, especially if it bought him more time as himself rather than a torn, jumbled mess of notebook pieces and jumbled binary code.

"Basically, you just have to hang out in here and I'll tell you what to write and where to write it," the ghostly skeleton said, keeping his voice down now but still moving about quite a bit. This was one of those situations where Error wished his strings worked on ghost monsters--though even then, there was no guarantee that they'd work on anyone in Love's...unique...situation. Sighing at the vague answer he'd gotten, Error jerked his head as a signal for Love to follow him, leading the two of them through the endless white and over to a massive pile of beanbags, which Error wasted no time flopping into before he finally opened up the book.

The pages were lightly tinted pink, and had fine, thin black lines running across their surface. The left pages all had the heading: Target, while the right pages all had the heading: Match, which puzzled Error to no end. Love, however, seemed delighted that the book was finally open, even lightly clapping his hands together as his eyelights briefly formed into stars. "Okay, so all you have to do is get a pen and we can start!" he cheered, making Error sigh in disinterest as he fished a stolen pen out of his hoodie pocket and glanced up at his companion in evident distaste. " ~~Got the stupid pen, what next?~~ " 

"So, let's start easy. The last pair I was trying to put together was Blue, who would be our Target in this case," Love began, pausing for a while until his unwilling partner finally got the hint and printed Blue's name in the first Target line, "and Dust, who's his Match, though he's oblivious. Poor Blue's been pining after him for months!" the little Cupid wannabe (the nickname Error had come up with for the annoyance in his head) declared sadly, eliciting a snort from Error in response, who had clicked the pen closed and was evidently trying not to laugh.

" ~~A-Are you serious, kid?! Blue and Dusty??? Blue would die immediately, and there's no way in Void he's "pining" over Dust. The brat is clearly clueless about love and tends to spend all his time with the other members of his awful squad. If anything, his 'Match' should be one of them, if not both.~~ " Error paused, a wicked grin spreading over his face while Love looked on, concerned and beginning to shake his head frantically after a moment as he realized what Error was likely going to do.

"Error, please, you're going to hurt everyone if you don't put down the right names!" the little skeleton cried out, wringing his hands frantically and floating back and forth in midair to try and burn off some anxious energy. "Please think about what you're doing--"

" ~~Will it still count as me completing part of your work if the wrong names are entered in the book?~~ " Error asked conversationally, cutting Love off entirely. The poor guardian meekly nodded, and Error's grin returned, somehow wider and more concerning than before. " ~~Excellent,~~ " was all he said, before beginning to jot down names at seemingly random as Love sputtered in dismay and tried desperately to plead with him, all to no avail.

The multiverse was decidedly confused for the rest of that week as the strangest pairings started popping up out of nowhere, and Error found himself watching his friends and enemies slightly more often than Undernovela for the extent of that time, chuckling at their misfortunes and eating chocolate, while Love sulked in the corner, stuck waiting until the day the spell over him was finally broken and he had to go out and fix Error's mistakes. 

And yet, on the day he finally regained physical form and his capsules (the notebook disappearing in the process, thank the stars for that) and prepared to leave Error and the Anti-Void behind, Love still managed a smile at the Destroyer and a quick "Thank you for helping me!" before disappearing. Error blinked a couple of times in confusion, then went back to his beanbag pile, trying to puzzle out what was up with that so-called guardian as he set up another episode of Undernovela, also trying to ignore the warm feeling in the remnants of his soul at the fact that he'd been thanked for something. 

Just as he tried to ignore the part of himself, deep down, that secretly hoped he'd get to see Love again someday and tease the kid about this crazy week. They **_were not_** 'friends,' 

Definitely not.


	5. Forced Brotherly Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The prompt for this chapter:
> 
> Cross kidnaps Nightmare and Dream and makes them have a 'friendly brother talk,' because, as he explains it: 
> 
> "I wasn’t there when my brother needed me, and I won’t let you two make the same mistake as I did!"

"Why do you bother trying?"

"What do you hope to achieve by 'making me good again?'"

"Don't you understand that it's pointless?"

"Give up on your wishful thinking that I can change when that so clearly isn't the case."

"Please listen to me."

"I'm doing my best to help those that need it the most."

"You are no exception."

"I still love you--"

"Don't finish that sentence."

"I'm _not_ your 'brother.'"

"Sometimes I question if that was ever the case."

"...please just talk to me."

"You wouldn't then, but we're here now."

"Just tell me how to help, what to say, what to do to help guide things back in a better direction!"

...

"Heh...heheheh..."

"You **really** are stupid, aren't you?"

"There's _**nothing**_ you can do, Dream. I'm already broken beyond repair. I'm honestly amazed you're still trying to 'fix' me after all this time."

"Everyone can change from light to darkness, but that also means they can change back the other way!"

"There's still hope for you--"

"No, there isn't."

"I was consumed by the darkness, and I welcomed it into my very soul."

"There's no coming back from that."

...

"There h-has to be a way..."

"Everyone would like to believe that there isn't a point of no return, but there always is."

"I found it firsthand."

"...Nightmare, please...at least tell me why you think this way."

"Like you wouldn't know. But very well, I'll humor you."

"Wh--?"

"Shut up. Now then..."

"I 'think this way' because all the hope was kicked and punched and bled out of me from a very young age. Those 'lovely' villagers that you'd always hang around, back when we were very young? They were monsters in the truest sense of the word, brother."

...

"I knew they were..."

"Only after the fact."

"No."

"...what?"

"I knew their true colors from the very beginning, brother. I only acted happy around them be...because they said they'd hurt you more often if I wasn't cooperative and acted as if I _wanted_ to be friends with them and help them out."

"And I couldn't say anything about it at the time because I didn't know how to bring the subject up without hurting your already damaged psyche further."

...

"I...heh...I really shouldn't be surprised."

"Do you really think a stupid sob story like that would change anything?"

"I--"

"I'm done trying to 'make amends,' Dream. The only thing I want is complete and utter misery from everyone in every timeline."

"Revenge is my one goal, and I _will_ reach it."

...

"I see."

"And I won't pretend to understand your reasoning, but you know I can't support that."

"Then you shall suffer alongside everyone else."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."


	6. Undesired Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _____ has to give half of his soul (willingly?) to Ink for the protector's survival, which makes Ink unintentionally fall in love with him.
> 
> Changing things up a bit here! Also, this is taking place in a Dreamswap multiverse, so please keep that in mind!

He sat outside of the door to Dream's office, swinging his legs a bit thanks to sheer boredom. He'd barely been here for five minutes and he already wanted this impromptu meeting to be over and done with so he could go back to his new room and question his life choices for the umpteenth time. That would be less nerve-wracking than listening to muffled voices through a heavy wooden door and trying to piece together words.

He adjusted his collar on the overly formal outfit he'd been instructed to wear upon first joining up with JR, trying to ignore the little pin attached to the front of his shirt, right over his soul area. It gleamed in the bright lights of the hallway he was currently seated in, though, becoming eye-catching and impossible to ignore in the process. With a sigh of defeat, he carefully lay his hand over the pin to hide it from view and leaned back in his seat, legs slowing in their movements but his body in constant motion. And although he looked calm on the surface, the skeleton was anything but, his thoughts continuing to race at a million miles an hour.

_Why did he call me out of the blue like that?_

_Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong again?? I'm still in training, for gosh sakes, they shouldn't demand perfection from me this soon!_

_Or maybe it's about their suspicions that I'm not actually loyal? I guess they're warranted, but it still hurts--_

The office door opened and Ink poked his head out, glancing at the new recruit with an air of disappointment as the latter hurried to try and straighten up his posture at least a little bit and smooth out his clothes.

"We're ready for you," was all Ink said before ducking back into the room, and the other wasted no time in standing up and following the cold, nearly emotionless skeleton into Lord Dream's private office, instantly dipping into a bow once he'd shut the door behind him, as he'd been taught to do.

"At ease, if you would," his boss said, and as Ink came to stand beside Dream's desk, the new recruit took a quick glance at the winged skeleton before him. 

The head of JR and the one that had pulled him out of a very bad situation and given him a second chance out of seemingly nowhere sat behind a dark wooden desk, his bright yellow color palette contrasting with the elegant and dark furniture around him in a surprisingly eye-catching way. With how brightly his wings and eyes glowed, it was easy to see why Lord Dream could be mistaken for a god--

_Or an angel of death._

The recruit banished that thought immediately as Dream softly cleared his throat, drawing attention back to the matter at hand. Right. They needed to talk, Dream had said...

"You've been with us for a few months now, and while your performance has been deemed anywhere between adequate to excellent by other staff members, the fact of the matter is that everyone is constantly questioning your loyalty."

Ah, there it was. He wasn't really surprised by this information, to be honest. He wasn't exactly the type to remain by anyone's side for too long, after all...

"So, I have discussed the matter with Ink, and we have come up with a solution," Dream continued, and Ink nodded along in a seemingly mindless manner, as if he weren't paying attention to anything being said whatsoever. "We are going to ensure that you cannot betray us without serious consequences ensuing for both you and whoever you may try to ally with," the leader concluded, and the one standing before them blinked.

"May I ask how...?" he asked quietly, dreading the answer but not wanting to let on just how scared he was. That could mean any number of things, but none of the options presenting themselves to him sounded good at all. It was a shame he didn't get a say in the matter.

"It's rather simple, really. You and Ink will undergo a procedure together that will result in half of your soul being bound to his body. That way, if you were to try and betray us, not only would Ink be able to track you and your allies down and lead JR forces right to you, but he'll also be able to feel things if I am not around him enough. Lately I have been unable to spend as much time with him as he would require to properly feel, and it has lead to rather...disastrous results. Also, the process will result in him falling in love with you, so perhaps that will give you an incentive to stay loyal on top of other things we've already discussed, yes?" 

The room fell silent after Dream finished speaking, Ink simply leaning against the desk and watching the recruit nearly have a panic attack at the news, his eyelights shrunken in severely and his chest heaving a bit as he struggled to get his breathing under control. Finally, he spoke.

"...how soon will this be happening?"

"Tomorrow afternoon. I apologize for the short notice, but we thought it was best not to give you too much time to fret over this. We will ensure your complete and total safety, of course." Dream then glanced meaningfully at Ink, who approached the third member of the little group within the office and helped him exit the room, walking him down the hallway and towards the barracks, letting the slightly shorter skeleton lean on him for support.

"We'll be fine," he muttered in what he hoped was a reassuring manner as they neared the other's door. "Not that much is going to be different, you know."

"It's just sudden, that's all. But hey, if it means that Dream will finally get off my case about loyalty along with everyone else in JR, then I'll go through with it--not like I have a choice anyways, heh.."

"See you tomorrow, then," was all Ink replied with as he dropped the other off in front of his door and turned, heading back up the hall to take care of some task or other.

"...see you..." the recruit muttered, opening the door to his quarters with a sigh and stepping through, clutching at the area above his soul and feeling the pin's edges dig into his phalanges a bit.

 _Stars, Cross_ , he thought to himself bitterly, _what have you gotten yourself into?_


	7. Soulmates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets a soulmate that they love and cherish for the rest of their lives--only, Ink doesn't have one because of his soullessness. 
> 
> Soon, he becomes jealous and later on dangerous, killing those who are happily in love out of envy and blind rage.

**_Day 1: December 24th, 20XX_ **

_Blue finally found his soulmate today, while we were all having our annual Christmas party for the ~~third~~ fourth? I think it's the fourth time this has happened, yeah...Anyways! His flower finally bloomed today while he and Nightmare of all beings were hanging out together!! Thank goodness we've had a truce between Dreamy and the gooplord for a while now, otherwise I don't even want to imagine how that would have gone! Anyways, now Blue has a big, fluffy-looking, dark pink flower sitting pretty on his wrist. Dream, of course, was thrilled to see that those two are going to get together, telling the new couple that he completely supports them and blah blah blah. I, of course, took it upon myself to ask when they were going to get married, and Nighty oh-so-kindly threw out a window, hehe! I swear, he needs Blue in his life to mellow him out! _

_I mean, it's not like Blue's going to leave the Stars anytime soon or anything, either! After all, he's still very much needed on the team and everything. Just because there's a truce in place, that doesn't mean that the multiverse doesn't still face threats all the time that we have to deal with! (Honestly, do the Creators have **nothing** better to do than make more work for us???) _

_Well, anyways, I'll stop writing here for today! See you next time, Diary!_

_~Ink! (That's me!)_

**_Day 38: January 31st, 20XX_ **

_I don't understand what's happening today, Dream just came home and he's way happier than normal, which is saying something. I mean, have you met the guy? He's always happy, but this is too much!! Oh gosh, I feel like if things keep going this way, his stupid aura's going to affect me again and I'll have to drink some of my gross paints, like blue--oh, am I rambling? Sorry, sorry! Where was I...?_

_Right! So anyways, Dream comes home spouting nonsense about a flower, and Blue got all excited too and his eyes turned into stars. I mentioned that I didn't fully understand what they were talking about, so Dream just rolled up his sleeve a little bit and this weird-looking yellow bloom uncurled from between his arm bones and basically showed itself off to us. Blue asked who it represented and Dream said that he got it while dropping off a care package for Cross, who's sick right now and staying in bed in Nightmare's castle basically all day, which has got to be the most boring thing to do..._

_I still don't get it. If these things are supposed to show up and make you so happy that you look like you're going to explode, then why haven't I gotten one yet? After all, I've probably interacted with almost everyone across all the AUs by now! Why can't I have a dumb flower on my wrist, too?_

_...doesn't matter. I don't need one anyway._

_~Ink_

**_Day ???_ **

_I can't do it anymore. Stupid Killer got a flower yesterday. A cosmos bloom, so haha, it's Outer. Of course, no member of the Star Sanses gets left out, even if they **left the team** , huh? But oh, poor, sad Ink doesn't have a soulmate!! _

_Can they stop looking at me like they feel sorry for my soulless state when they oh-so-clearly don't?? They're pretending to be good friends with me, but oh no, they're all happy because they have people to fall back on and take care of them if they have an off day, but me? I just have the empty house in the Doodlesphere to go back to, and it's not like I can create a soulmate for myself, either._

_..._

_I'm going to show them. I'm going to show them what it means to be alone, to be desperate to have someone look at you like that, for there to be a flower on your wrist._

_After all, you only get one soulmate for your entire life...! I can make them all feel the way I do! Just have to be careful about this, I don't want to be caught, after all!_

_~:)_

**_Day ????_ **

_Oh his screams were obnoxious, but thankfully I shut him up before Nighty came inside and caught us. I went through a portal and watched the "poor" guardian of negativity have a mental breakdown over a little pile of dust, a blue bandanna, and some scattered, wilted carnation petals. Watching the little blue flower on the goopy creep's wrist wither away to nothing as well, watching him try to heal what was already dead--it was glorious!_

_I grabbed one of Blue's petals on my way out, so I can press it between the pages of this book! Once I get one from each of my dearest friends, I can make my own soulmate flower out of them and show it off, maybe! Flaunt the fact that I have more soulmates in one place than anyone else!!_

**_???_ **

_Can't kill Dream outright, but boy, he looks dead inside now! I was the one to personally comfort him after Dreamy got a package delivered to his door that contained what little remains of his dearest Cross. What a **shame** that the guardsman is dead now, hehe! _

_Really, he was too easy to trick! Just said that I needed his help with something and lured him right to a Dusttale AU. Now I can pin the blame on someone else and no one will know what's going on! I swear, it's too easy to mess with these guys! Now I just have to play the part of sad, supportive friend and go back out to the living room and comfort Dreamy for the rest of the day. What a chore._

**_!!_ **

_They're onto me now. I shouldn't have risked murdering Killer, but I couldn't resist the chance when he came to talk with me directly! Now both Dream and Nightmare are sniffing around, and if they find this diary, I'm done for. But it doesn't matter anymore! I taught them all a lesson, and now, I can die satisfied. The Star Sanses are as they should be, all on the same page, all equal again, and all without soulmates, one way or another!_

* * *

Just as Ink finished writing the last word in this latest, scribbled mess of a diary entry, he felt something odd on his wrist, a slight tingling sensation. Glancing down, he was taken aback by the appearance of a little purple flower erupting from a long, thin stalk on his wrist. 

"N-No way...!" Ink gasped out, scrambling back from the diary that was splayed open on the floor in front of him, hurriedly pushing himself into a sitting position as he stared down at the very real, very clearly blooming, soul flower on his wrist. The flower was a deep purplish-blue color and rather small, but Ink loved it immediately.

"Wolfsbane," a deep, soothing voice said from behind the artist, who whirled around at once. Behind him was a gaseous figure that vaguely resembled a skeleton, but also didn't, sort of like Nightmare with his goop. The stranger had a yellow flower on his wrist, which was brightly glowing in that way that soul flowers did whenever a pair of soulmates were right next to each other. So that meant...

"You're my soulmate?!" Ink breathed, a crazed grin creeping onto his face as the other nodded and floated closer, some of his black, smoky body curling around Ink's body in an oddly fond gesture. 

"Indeed I am," the stranger replied, his red, glowing eyes fixed solely on Ink's dull, white eyelights. "I'm so happy to finally meet you, Ink."

Ink began to laugh and cry simultaneously as he was embraced by the dark, smoggy entity that he was bound to from now until either of them died. "I-I'm so...h-happy to meet you too...!"

" _Hate Sans, my dearest soulmate!_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a quick guide to the flowers mentioned and who and what they represent:
> 
> Dark Pink Carnation (the flower on Blue's wrist) -- represents fondness & Nightmare.
> 
> Blue Iris (the flower on Nightmare's wrist) -- represents faith/hope & Blue.
> 
> Daffodil (the flower on Dream's wrist) -- represents rebirth & Cross.
> 
> Anthurium (the flower on Cross's wrist) -- represents kindness & Dream.
> 
> Purple hyacinth (the flower on Outer's wrist) -- represents regret & Killer.
> 
> Cosmos (the flower on Killer's wrist) -- represents tranquility & Outer.
> 
> Bird's Foot Trefoil (the flower on Hate's wrist) -- represents revenge & Ink.
> 
> Aconite (the flower on Ink's wrist at the end) -- represents hatred & Hate Sans.


	8. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nightmare doesn't kill to gain negativity, but instead takes away and/or alters the memories of others in order to spread and gain more negative emotions

The child cowered under his bed, the Wi-Fi symbols on his shoulders faintly glowing and the headphones attached to his head eerily devoid of music for a change. His breathing was slightly labored and shaky as he closed his eyes tightly, both hands pressing his orange, music-note patterned scarf over his mouth to muffle any noises he was making. Everything felt _too cold_ , _too isolated_. Something was wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was...

A black tentacle slithered under the bed and up to the child's foot, wrapping tightly around his ankle and harshly yanking him out from under the bed, another coiling around his wrists and keeping the little skeleton's hands pressed firmly against his mouth, letting him muffle his own screams. How nice of this little victim of his to do half the work for him!

" _Shh, little one, just relax. Think of this little game of ours as a bad dream, why don't you?_ " the shadowy figure murmured, none-too-gently forcing the child onto the bed and pressing his spine into the mattress, his single teal eye burning brightly in the otherwise pitch black room, a crescent moon shape filling out under his eyelight as a cruel grin spilt his face and he fed off of the trapped child's ever-growing fear. " _Though I must say, I haven't had to play hide and seek with anyone in quite a while. That was rather fun, but under the bed is such a cliché place...though it's better than just pulling the blanket over your head, I suppose,_ " Nightmare continued, ignoring the muffled cries and pleas of his little captive, who was still panicking and had started crying. How predictable. With a little huff of air leaving his mouth to signify his annoyance, the king of negativity leaned down and pressed a hand to the child's forehead, being surprisingly, and mockingly, gentle about it.

" _Goodnight, young one,_ " he murmured, sending the helpless child drifting off to sleep under his power. With a little chuckle, Nightmare closed his own eyelight and allowed his consciousness to merge with the little skeleton's temporarily. Time to make some...adjustments to the child's memories. He seemed very attached to his older brother, but with a few careful tweaks? Hah, they'd be fighting like wild, half-starved alley cats soon enough, spitting insults and hissing threats at each other. Such a wonderful way to spread and feed from negativity...

Nightmare's influence poked and prodded at the little one's memories, sweeping through them and brushing positive memories and thoughts aside for now. He'd erase a few before he left, probably, but wouldn't take too many, he'd learned the hard way that that led to suspicions and Dream bringing his guard up and patrolling AUs more closely than normal. That pathetic brother of his never could take the initiative, huh? Continuing with some subtle changes to the memories he came across, Nightmare could feel the positivity leeching away from the figure pinned to the bed below him. Good, things were working perfectly. He could feel himself growing stronger, so he'd have to end this little session soon.

Taking a couple of moments to survey the darkness permeating the child's mind, Nightmare then turned to the remaining spots of light in the child's subconscious with a visible sneer on his face. Smog rolled out from his dream construct form, engulfing a couple of the weaker blots of light and consuming them utterly, erasing the skeleton child's recollection of whatever events those might have been utterly and irreversibly. Sensing that his time in the Underbeats AU was running out, as he could only stay in positive or neutral AUs for so long before Dream sensed him 'meddling' and came running, Nightmare reluctantly freed himself from the little skeleton's mind, smirking in satisfaction as the tiny body in the bed shivered and tried to curl into a ball.

Petting the little one's head mockingly one last time, Nightmare withdrew his tentacles and backed into the shadows, forming a portal to his castle and stepping through it, his parting words ringing in the otherwise silent room ominously as the little one stirred slowly towards wakefulness:

" _ **Until next we meet, little one. I look forward to that day.**_ "


	9. Set in Stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nightmare is a yandere for someone, they have a fight, and the other person just doesn't want to be with the King of Darkness anymore, so Nightmare turns them into stone (like he did with Dream) to keep them with him forever!

Nightmare hummed softly to himself as he stepped through the secret doorway and out into a little garden area, surrounded on all four sides by high hedges entwined with massive, thorny vines that promised harm to any who tried to enter or exit this place without permission. Aside from the dark lord's footsteps hitting the moss-covered stones that paved the pathways of this little area, all was still and eerily silent. No birdsong, no breeze rustling the leaves of the massive hedges or the petals of the dimly glowing echo flowers that had been carefully cultivated and planted here...speaking of, as Nightmare passed by them, the flowers didn't even repeat the phrases that had been stored within them long ago, the magic locked away until a distant point in the future, when the being imprisoned in this verdant place would be reawakened. 

In the middle of this silent garden hideaway stood a small stone statue of a skeleton, sockets slightly narrowed and little stone tears running down their cheekbones. One hand was slightly stretched out, as if the figure was trying to either reach out for someone or something or push them away, fingers slightly curled in on themselves as if in pain. Their mouth was beginning to open, either in a pain-filled cry or a plea of some sort, and their legs were slightly bent underneath them, their small body beginning to curl in on itself and crumple to the ground, perhaps. A few small chips littered the statue here and there, but when Nightmare interlaced his fingers with the statue's outstretched hand, they vanished immediately and left the piece in mint condition once more.

The dark creature smiled to himself as he tenderly ran a tentacle up the statue's arm and to its face, gently stroking along the figure's cheekbones and continuing to hold its hand, a deep chuckle escaping him as a couple more stony tears seemed to appear under the figure's sockets.

"Now, now, don't cry, love. I warned you what would happen if you went against me and tried to leave, didn't I? I told you that I wouldn't let you go, _ever_ , and yet you were still foolish enough to try and run away from me. You brought this upon yourself, and you should be grateful that I'm still coming by to check on you as often as I do. Every five years, on the dot, my love, I come to this place to make sure you're still conscious and aware."

A silence fell over the garden again as Nightmare drew a little ways away from the statue and looked it over, considering something.

"You won't have aged a day, you know, despite almost a hundred years having passed by the time I let you out of there. So you see, this was sort of a good thing, huh? I extended your life by quite a bit, my dear, and that means we'll have more time together once you are free again."

The statue, of course, couldn't answer, but Nightmare could feel the other's vague, faintly stirring emotions, and fed off of them eagerly. So much sorrow, and guilt, and _loneliness_...if he were even a little kinder, perhaps he'd have felt bad about trapping his beloved away like this, where no one else could see them, but Nightmare didn't feel anything but satisfaction. He stepped around to the side of the statue, running a hand tenderly down the bunny ears hanging off of the statue's hood, which hung down behind him a bit more than usual. Wrapping his arms around the figure's waist, Nightmare leaned his head softly on their shoulder, turning his head slightly so he was right next to their ear, and whispered:

" _ **I can't believe we only have to wait another 60 years to be with each other again, Ccino. I look forward to that day, I am sure, just as eagerly as you do.**_ "

With that, Nightmare straightened up and stepped back in front of his 'love,' still trapped in stone, and mockingly blew him a kiss. "See you in another five years, love," he called cheerfully over his shoulder, opening a portal tantalizingly close to the trapped skeleton before stepping through it and leaving the poor soul all alone again as more tears formed on the statue's cheeks.


	10. Fight to Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blue visits the Bad Sanses weekly and is secretly good friends with them.
> 
> One day, while he watches Dust and Killer spar, Dust fires a blaster at Killer, not remembering that Blue always sits behind him, so when Killer dodges the blaster, it hits Blue at full power, which results in him losing all of his memories.

He stared down at the crumpled figure in the bed, expression blank but his tainted soul racing at a million miles an hour. He flinched when Killer came up behind him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault," he said, and Dust wanted to laugh. 

"Not my fault? I'm the one that was using a blaster when I knew that there was an audience, I should have been able to control the blast better--!" he cut himself off with a cough, definitely not the beginnings of a sob or anything. No, definitely not. Ruthless murderers didn't cry, they didn't deserve the luxury of letting out emotions in a normal, healthy way anymore.

"Accidents happen when we spar, it's kind of unavoidable," Horror chimed in from his place in the doorway of the little bedroom they'd fixed up for the vibrant skeleton that was currently so still, so fragile-looking, as he rested on the bed that everyone was so fixated on. Horror himself didn't even have his ever-present axe in his hand at the moment, worried that their friend might be scared of it if he woke up in a dazed state or something. 

Cross was kneeling on the floor next to the bed, his mouth hidden by his massive scarf? Cape? Whatever it was, he was using it to hide the way his mouth was trembling whenever he tried to speak, giving the illusion of stoicism that the guard always did his utmost to keep securely in place. Now, as he stared at the form of his unconscious friend, the monochrome skeleton gripped his own sleeves tightly, trying to will his tears away before he turned his gaze to the final member of this little group. "Will he be okay?" he asked their leader softly, doing his best to keep the tremor out of his voice.

Nightmare sighed softly, rubbing at his forehead tiredly as he tried to figure out how to respond to that question. "I don't know, Cross. Physically, he'll recover, but mentally..." He trailed off, and Dust jumped into the conversation again.

"Mentally...what? Spill, Boss. W-What's going on with Blue?" he demanded, ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that sounded so much like his brother but _wasn't him_ , whispering oh-so-sweetly to Dust about how great it would have been if only Blue had dusted, how much EXP the Star Sans might be worth, surely he couldn't really be so innocent? He must have some amount of LV! Dust shook his head violently to try and get the voice to leave him alone, and Killer sighed softly, also refocusing his attention onto Nightmare and still keeping his hand on Dust's shoulder.

"...mentally, he may be very severely damaged now. I've only seen something like this happen once before, where someone was hit with a powerful attack and survived, and they...were not the same person afterwards." Nightmare's single eyelight was focused on Blue's sleeping face, which was concerningly blank. Usually, the bubbly little skeleton smiled almost constantly, even in his sleep, but now he looked like nothing more than a shell of the person they'd all grown to care for like one of their own. "They forgot almost everything that had ever happened to them, couldn't even remember how to walk, talk, or eat properly and had to relearn everything from scratch. And even then, their personality was never the same, either. They became someone new."

Horror gasped softly, his large, clawed hands wringing together in distress, Killer swore under his breath, Dust stiffened up, and Cross turned his face away from the others, his breathing hitching in his chest as he struggled not to cry. Nightmare himself was oddly still and quiet now, even his constantly-shifting tentacles had stilled. After a moment, though, he directed each of his tentacles over to a member of his group, gently trying to reassure them through touch that he was here for them, that they were all going through this together.

"Have you heard from Error yet?" Killer asked after a minute of silence had passed, and Nightmare shook his head no. 

"I'm pretty sure he was devastated...he'll likely stay in the Anti-Void for a week or two to try and cope with the potential loss of his best friend," Cross murmured weakly, and the others nodded in agreement. It was no secret that the Destroyer had grown strangely fond of the effervescent Blue after he'd kidnapped him a long time ago, and he was the reason that Blue had even met the other Bad Sanses outside of battle and grown close to them over the couple of years since then. But now, all of those good times might have ripped away from them...

 _Blue's sockets twitched_. _He murmured something inaudible._

The others in the room froze, Cross scrambling backwards to give Blue space and the others sort of clustering together on instinct. Nightmare even drew his tentacles as close to his back as he could, to try and appear less intimidating, Horror slouched down further in the doorway and hid his hands behind his back, Killer pulled up his hood to try and hide the top half of his face and the tears of liquid hate running down his cheeks, and Dust...simply watched Blue's form on the bed as the small Star Sans blinked his eyes open and slowly sat up, looking around with that eerily blank expression of his.

No one else moved, they hardly dared to breathe as Blue's gaze finally fixed on the little group by the doorway of the room, and he furrowed his brows a little, looking at them harder. There was a flicker of hope in every soul, that maybe they'd gotten lucky! Maybe he remembered something, at least!

But Blue simply blinked a couple more times and then looked down at his own hands, flexing his fingers almost curiously. Like he didn't recognize his own body. 

Horror was the first to retreat, stumbling off down the hall with a muffled excuse, something about needing to sharpen his axe. An excuse that no one questioned, because they'd all be making similar excuses themselves, in a moment. Killer darted off next, saying something about going for a walk to try and relax. Dust almost thought of staying, but the guilt was too much for him to handle and he left as well, muttering about going to cause some chaos elsewhere, in a far-off AU. Of course, none of that was true. He was simply going to his own room, as the other two had, to grieve over the loss of their friend. Whoever that was, the little skeleton in the bed with the too-blank face and the dull blue eyes, was not him, was not _their_ Blue.

Cross and Nightmare lingered the longest, but finally Nightmare sighed and gently pulled Cross onto his feet with a tentacle. "Go on, Cross," he said softly, kindly, carefully nudging the guard from the room with an extra tentacle, his own gaze still locked on the stranger in their friend's body. "You know you can't stay here, with him. It's going to break you."

Cross was too distressed to argue verbally, but he pleaded with Nightmare in a silent, desperate gaze as he turned and finally drifted down the hall to his room like a ghost, and the plea burned itself into Nightmare's corrupted soul in an agonizing fashion, because there was nothing he could do.

Cross had begged him silently to bring Blue back to them, to help them go back to happier times...

But not even a god could do that. Blue was as good as dead.

Nightmare left the room last, once the other skeleton had fallen back asleep, and trudged to his own bedroom. Sinking down behind his desk with a sigh, Nightmare picked up his pen and began to write a letter to the one person in the entire multiverse he'd sworn to never contact again.

Dream deserved to know what had happened to one of his closest allies and friends, as well.

It was only fair, since Nightmare and his boys had stolen him away.


	11. Clingy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream comes back to the Star Sanses' base with Cross clinging onto him. 
> 
> Right before Ink and Blue can attack Cross, Dream stops them and explains that he found Cross while out on a mission to a wintry AU, alone and scared to death (probably because of flashbacks to his ruined world), and says that something must have happened to the soldier, since he behaves very naively/innocently now and is very clingy to Dream.
> 
> Indeed, despite Dream and Cross actively fighting with each other before, Cross seems to only remember the positive guardian and no-one else, and sees him as a friend now...

Dream sighs softly, forcing himself up and out of bed as he hears another timid little knock at his door, already knowing who it is and guessing that he won't be getting any more sleep tonight. It's already 4 AM, though, so at least he'd be up in a couple of hours anyways.

He makes his way to the door of his room in a careful shuffling fashion, arms tucked in close to his sides and his eyelights' dim glow the only thing lighting his way forward through the otherwise pitch-black room. Unlike Blue and Ink, Dream doesn't have a nightllght in his room for late-night emergencies of any sort. He needs complete darkness to successfully fall asleep, and even then it's difficult to do so. Shaking those thoughts off, Dream reaches out for the door handle and pulls the door open.

Cross, as he expected, is standing out in the hallway. A blanket is wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak of some sort, and his odd-colored eyelights are small and shaking in his sockets. Small purple tears are still gathered in the corners of the taller skeleton's eyes. As soon as the door's opened enough, Cross meekly slips inside of Dream's room, and the positive guardian forces a small smile onto his face in the most efficient manner possible.

"Another nightmare?" he asks softly, and Cross nods, the movements jerky and awkward. Dream wonders if the motions made his neck vertebrae hurt, but shakes that thought aside too. "Alright, why don't you get settled on the bed and I'll go get some warm milk and a chocolate bar for us, okay? Comfort food?" Cross's eyelights brighten a little at the idea and he nods excitedly, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He might not remember anything, but he's got perfect posture even now.

Dream, ghostly-looking in his simple, oversized white T-shirt that he always sleeps in, makes his way out into the hallway as quietly as possible, gliding past his friends' bedroom doors on silent feet and then tip-toeing down the stairs, off to the kitchen to grab the chocolate for Cross and the milk for himself. He doesn't even like milk as a general rule, but the warm liquid traveling into his non-existent throat brings a feeling of comfort with it. Besides, it's faster to make than tea.

On his way back to his own room, as he tries to brace himself for the inevitable torrent of tears from Cross once he starts relating the details of his nightmare (which has become almost a nightly ritual by now, come to think), Dream runs into Ink outside in the hallway, his mismatched eyelights trained on Dream's partly-open bedroom door. "Did he wake you up again?" the artist asks in a disconcertingly pleasant tone that's trying to mask his annoyance at Cross's actions.

"Yes. You know he's very attached to me for whatever reason, and even both of you offering to console him after a nightmare instead of me hasn't changed that. It's like it's instinctual or something for him to try and find me if he's distressed. Could have to do with the memory loss?" Dream mumbles everything out between soft yawns, the dark circles under his sockets clearly visible, even in the very dim hallway lighting.

Ink frowns deeply at Dream's words, but steps back a little so his friend can go back to his room unimpeded. "I don't trust him, that's all I'm saying. I bet you anything it's that 'dear brother' of yours trying to wear you out so you'll slip up in battle one of these times and he can kidnap you really easily."

Dream lets out a soft chuckle at Ink's words, but there's uncertainty in his eyelights as he edges around his friend and continues towards his door. "...I don't think even Nightmare would stoop so low as to erase someone's memories and abandon them in the woods like that. And given that we haven't encountered him since, maybe he's trying to search for Cross?" Though he tries to sound sure of himself, the doubt in Dream's voice is palpable. 

"Heh, maybe. Or he's just waiting for you to mess up," Ink counters with one last look at Dream's door before he creeps back into his own room and shuts himself in for the rest of the early morning hours. Dream shudders to himself as he enters his own room, but shifts his expression back into a tired smile for Cross's sake.

Whatever happened to the guard, he's here now, and he needs Dream's help more than ever. The positive guardian will do everything in his power not to let Cross down.


	12. Sharing a Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ink wasn't created soulless, he became soulless, as he had to give his soul up to a new being. It was a necessary step to create someone who would be equal to him, someone who would protect the other half of the balance.  
> And this someone is known today as the destroyer of AUs, Error.  
> Since they share a soul that Error owns now, any intense emotions Error feels, also affect Ink greatly.  
> Ink has immense hatred for Error, as he knows that his soul got ripped out of his being to create the destroyer.

The fledgling multiverse was almost complete, but the creator noticed that something important was missing...after all, every Ink variant they'd ever seen had a matching Error of some form or other. Balance needed to be kept, and all that. However, they'd run out of code to complete their project successfully, and they didn't want to subject their Geno to the process that'd turn him into an Error. Too much time was needed for that, and too much suffering. There was another solution available, though...!

After all, Ink wasn't supposed to have a soul anyways, at least according to the original multiverse's rules. Why deviate from the norm, they wondered now, their vaguely humanoid figure slowly drawing closer to their brand-new creation, a child Ink Sans who was busily drawing with crayons and making a mess of the Doodlesphere's as of now blank, off-white floor. The scene before them almost made the creator reconsider what they were about to do to him, but they eventually squared their shoulders and drew closer to the child artist.

He sensed them coming and instantly shot up to his feet, beaming brightly and his odd-colored eyelights sparkling with unbridled joy. After all, he had a soul, so he could feel everything without issue. "Creator, hi!!!" he squeaked, nearly throwing himself at them and wrapping his tiny arms around their legs as best he could, attempting to hug them. "It's so nice to finally meet you! I'm Ink, though you probably knew that already, hehe!"

The creator didn't laugh along, though they did hug the artist back with a forced smile fixed in place on their facsimile of a face. "Yes...Ink, may I see your soul, by the way? I want to...check it over." It wasn't a total lie, but deceiving the still-innocent child version of this usually soulless character hurt.

Ink nodded eagerly, carefully pulling his brand-new soul out of his ribcage. The white, upside-down heart faintly shimmered with a rainbow hue as it floated in his cupped hands, just as the creator had intended it to. It was simplistic, but beautiful in its own way, so the creator felt another small pang of regret as they held out their hands for the soul and, the moment it was in their hands, backed away from Ink and began crushing the magical structure into mere pieces of code.

A scream wrenched itself from Ink's non-existent throat as he collapsed heavily onto his side, his slim, though short, fingers scrabbling for something to cling to on the barren floor of the Doodlesphere, his eyelights cycling through colors and shapes at a blindingly fast speed--quite literally. He couldn't see what was happening anymore, all he could do was wail and cry as pain unlike anything he'd ever known ripped its way through his small body--the magical connections that kept his soul bound to him snapping one by one. "Please stop, Creator, it h-h-hurts...!!" he blubbered, sorrow, terror, and other emotions he couldn't even name completely ruling his mind at this point, his wide sockets pointed at the being responsible for his pain.

"I'm so sorry, Ink, I can't stop now. I have to do this...it's important. You'll understand soon, I hope," the creator answered him with a shaking, guilt-ridden voice that was barely loud enough to be heard over Ink's pain-filled cries and pleas for this to stop, their hands shaking, but still working on crushing the magical organ to pieces. With each passing second, more and more of the distress and fear seemed to just...melt out of Ink. His crying slowed to a stop almost eerily fast, and his eyelights snapped into place as two plain, white orbs in his sockets, staring unblinkingly up at the Creator. The child was no longer his short-lived, emotional self. Now he was a husk. Soulless.

"Why...?" he croaked out, voice numb and dulled by now, watching as the code that used to be his soul began to reshape itself under the creator's skilled fingers. But that couldn't be right, it looked like they were making a new soul out of his old one? What was the point of that?? As long as he had a soul by the end of this whole mess, he guessed it didn't really matter, but the betrayal still stung a little--until it didn't, anymore.

"I needed to even things out, Ink. Balance. For every Dream, there's a Nightmare. For every Sans, a Papyrus--with some exceptions. For every Ink, an Error. That's how the multiverses work. And I wanted to keep your soul for you, I really did, but..." they trailed off, trying to keep their own eyes dry. They couldn't cry all over the half-finished code that was forming Error's soul and form--that'd spell disaster. "I didn't have enough code to create a proper Error. So I needed to use yours to help bring him to life."

"I don't want him. I just want my soul back, I don't want a different skeleton with part of _my_ code in his body," Ink retorted, sitting up with a grimace. His fingers and arms hurt from his frantic squirming against the ground earlier. He must have been thrashing around, and his bones would likely bruise later. "I swear, I'll hate him forever if you let him exist, Creator. I'd say I'd hate you too, but I don't have enough emotion left to hate more than one person at a time."

The creator sighed, looking down at the recoded soul in their grip, letting it float to the floor and begin forming a skeletal body around itself, glitches floating around the tiny form that they stepped in front of to shield the developing Error from Ink's wrath. "Ink, I already said I wouldn't have done things this way if I didn't have to--"

"Just go away. Take your new, better creation with you and leave me alone," Ink muttered, turning his back on the heartbroken creator and his newly-created foe, ignoring both of them in favor of trying to go back to drawing, though it wasn't long before he was throwing his crayons aside in boredom. That's all he could feel now--boredom and a deep, dark hatred for Error. That other skeleton that had stolen his soul from him...!

Then, he felt something new. Confusion? This couldn't be right, he _knew_ what had happened a few minutes ago, so why was Ink suddenly confused? 

It made sense when he glanced over his shoulder, and saw the creator telling Error what his job was, the duo standing off in the middle distance. Ink's tiny hands clenched into fists as he watched Error glance over at him and felt a sense of curiosity and faint happiness that wasn't his wash over him. Of course, it wasn't bad enough that Error had stolen his soul from him--now their emotions were linked as well?!

"...I'll get my code back one way or another, Error. I swear I will..." Ink muttered, watching the creator lead his rival away by the hand through a glowing portal. One day...one day he'd get back what was rightfully his own.


	13. Wrapped-Up Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blue had been kidnapped by Error months ago… or was it years? 
> 
> He can’t remember.  
> When he thinks about it, he can barely remember the face of his brother--what was his name again?
> 
> He’s been wrapped up in Error’s blue strings for way too long, and unbeknownst to him, it's those strings themselves that are the cause of his memory loss, making him forget his family, his friends, and his home, until the only thoughts that remain inside his mind are the anti-void and Error…

The soft sound of breathing filled the Anti-Void, the silence so utterly absolute outside of that one noise that it seemed deafening by comparison. Occasionally, the breathing would turn into soft crying or sobbing sounds, maybe angry and frantic growling that'd soon shift into pained hisses and whines, and very rarely it'd turn into a feeble, broken voice or breathy laugh. The noises would never receive an answer from the blinding white surroundings, and their creator would simply go quiet after a while.

He hadn't opened his sockets in ages, not wanting to see the endless white anymore and much preferring not seeing anything at all at this point. His limbs were heavy and ached or went numb by turns, and if he felt like his body didn't exist anymore (that had happened a concerning number of times by now, at least five times, he thought) all he needed to do was try to move at all. The blue strings that were holding him in place, dangling many feet above the 'floor,' would start digging into his bones and remind him that he was still alive, even if his life was nothing more than a cruel joke by now.

Blue barely remembered how he'd gotten here, but what he did recall always made him cry. He'd found it was actually a bit of a relief to have his memories slipping away from him little by little, since if he didn't remember what he'd lost, the emotional and mental anguish he'd been going through for so long would finally end. Maybe, when he was completely numb, his jailer would finally return and let him down. If Blue were a good puppet for him, maybe Error would finally stay here so he didn't have to be alone anymore. 

Error...that glitching skeleton was the reason that Blue was here, dangling from a web of blue strings high in the air and all by himself. Blue had hated him at first, likely because the black-boned skeleton monster had kidnapped him from...his old home, he assumed, and brought him here against his will. Blue vaguely remembered that he'd seen his brother before he'd been taken away, a flash of a terrified, square-shaped face framed by orange cloth and a blurry hand reaching towards his own, and then Blue had found himself in the endless white. So much white...

He used to like the color white, he thought with a soft little sob, wishing he could wipe at his tears and clean his face up somewhat, but his arms were pinned above his head and he knew better than to move unless he was dissociating. The color used to represent his hometown, and the holidays, and the fun times he'd had in the snow, but now he could barely recall any of those events and only saw the color as a representation of his imprisonment by now. Sometimes, he fantasized about turning to dust in here, his own remains melting seamlessly into the white of the Anti-Void and Blue himself finally moving on to whatever came after death, escaping this nightmare forever.

But then he'd recall that he couldn't even die. His soul was with Error, and the sadistic glitch would ensure that Blue's HP never got low enough for him to dust. Sometimes, Blue wished that Error had just crushed his soul in these blue strings, as the destroyer had threatened to do when he'd first brought Blue here, back when he was more resistant. Braver--no, _stupider_. Blue had been stupid, trying to escape whenever he saw an opening. He should have known that there was no point to doing so, that he'd just end up making Error furious, but he thought he was sneaky.

"...E-Error..." Blue croaked out, breaking the almost-silence with his broken, emotionless voice that could barely manage to get above a whisper, "please come b-back...I'm s-sorry I was an idiot. I p-promise, I won't try to escape ever again...! If y-you come back, I'll be a good puppet, I won't fight back a-anymore. I'll do whatever you w-want...p-please come back....please...." He was hardly aware of what he was saying at this point, his sockets still closed tight and his dangling form eerily still, aside from his mouth moving as he babbled out pleas for Error over and over again. At some point, his voice died out entirely and he was left coughing pitifully with every new effort to speak. Yet he kept trying. Maybe, if he begged for long enough and was fully sincere about it, Error would come back?

Blue didn't even register the fact that he was crying again, expending even more of his weak magic reserves on simple tears, his mouth still moving with silent and useless pleas for Error to come back. He didn't want to be alone anymore, he'd do anything Error wanted if it meant he wouldn't be alone again--

\--A portal opened into the Anti-Void. 


	14. Soulless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ink does have a soul, he always did, but his soul was taken away as both a warning and a threat by Dream and Blue.  
> A warning to not get out of line  
> To pretend like he wanted to be on the ‘Star Sanses Team’  
> To pretend he wanted to fight the ‘’bad guys’’  
> To pretend that he wanted to break up with his datemate from the long-distant past, only to meet him again in almost every battle, forced to hide his true emotions...

Ink grunted in pain as his back was slammed heavily into yet another tree, black ink dripping from between his teeth as he heard one more of his ribs crack. The other two Star Sanses, Dream and Blue, who he could barely make out in the distance through his hazy vision, were not faring much better. Dream was doing his best to fend Killer and Dust away from himself, while Blue was stuck battling both Horror and Cross at the same time, barely able to keep himself from losing massive amounts of HP. With the way the three were spread across the battlefield, there was no way they could aid each other without dusting or getting severely injured in the process. As he was slammed into the tree again, Ink gasped out what little air was left in his body and finally pulled his attention back to the person hurting him.

Nightmare.

The guardian of negativity itself stared down at Ink with an inscrutable expression, his tentacles constricting even tighter around the artist's cracked and bleeding body as he took a small step closer, then another. Ink shut his eyes and tried to brace for whatever Nightmare would do next, even though he could already guess where this was going. He thought that being beaten up to the point of dusting would hurt less than what Nightmare was about to do. 

Sure enough, once Nightmare was shielding Ink's body from his teammates' view, healing magic, cold and soothing and familiar, raced along Nightmare's tentacles and into Ink. He felt his bones knit themselves back together again even as some other, deeper part of himself cracked a little more in response. He didn't deserve Nightmare's mercy, his healing magic, or his brief protection from the other Stars, and knowing that hurt more than any wounds the king of darkness or his minions could ever inflict on him.

"Ink," Nightmare began in his soft, rumbling voice that he reserved only for those he cared about, stripping away the decades of rage and venom that usually gave depth and resonance to every word he uttered and struck terror into the hearts of those who heard it, "why are we still doing this? Why are you still attempting to bury your feelings about everything where I cannot sense them?"

It was the same speech every battle. This was the seventh time Nightmare had asked him this set of questions, and the seventh time he'd hurt Ink only to heal him afterwards, the seventh time that bitter note of heartbreak, of _longing_ , had entered Nightmare's voice despite his best efforts to keep it at bay. This was the seventh time Ink had refused to look at the dark guardian, the seventh time he'd struggled, but succeeded, to hold back tears, and the seventh time that he'd felt that deep part of himself break a little more. Ink wondered how many more times he had left before something more valuable than a few of his own bones broke.

"...I already told you, Nightmare, that we're done. You have no reason to care about me anymore when I can't reciprocate your feelings," Ink murmured for the fifteenth time, the words still just as alien and wrong to him as they'd been the last six times he'd said them in battle. After all, they were part of a script he'd had to rehearse, one that Dream and Blue had been only too happy to coach him on. And every time he'd messed up or forgotten something--

Ink tried to block those memories out, but Nightmare was too fast for him this time, and the darker skeleton's socket narrowed a little as his cyan eyelight glowed a bit brighter. He knelt down before Ink's restrained form, cupping the artist's face in his hands in the most gentle manner imaginable, and said softly, "Ink."

That one word, uttered with so much love and pain and vulnerability from someone who did his best to pretend he didn't care unless you were someone he trusted, one of _his_ , sent Ink over the edge. Tears filled the artist's closed sockets and streamed down his cheeks, and when Nightmare let him go for the seventh time, he didn't run. He clung on to the guardian and sobbed into his chest, mumbling broken syllables that were half apologies, and half attempts to say that he still loved Night, he'd never stopped loving him.

Nightmare held on to Ink for dear life, though his grip was gentle, comforting. He stood up and signaled to his other boys in an instant, a simple flick of his tentacles being enough to call them back to his side. The others saw Ink crying in his arms and glared over at Dream and Blue, who were both struggling to remain on their feet and could barely even see or register what was happening. Killer and Cross stepped slightly in front of Nightmare and Ink on instinct, while Dust and Horror flanked them, all four barely able to keep their facades of indifference and battle lust in check. 

Ink was one of them, after all, and they'd been missing him and worrying after him just as much as Nightmare had been.

Horror leaned to the side just slightly, and opened his mouth just a little. "I'll make your favorite once we're back home," he whispered, and even through all of his tears and emotional pain, Ink cracked a smile as Nightmare and his group fell through a portal and off of the battlefield.

Sure, his soul wasn't beating in his ribcage, but that didn't bother the artist anymore. He was finally going home, and he had never felt more complete.


	15. Dolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Error makes dolls. 
> 
> Many, especially his enemies, know about that, but soon they shall learn the hard way that he can also create a different kind of doll...
> 
> Voodoo dolls.
> 
> \--This is a continuation of Chapter 3, 'Fixed' Creator, by the way!--

" ~~Ink~~ ," Error called out to the scatterbrained artist, who paused and glanced over his shoulder at the destroyer with a wide, innocent smile as he stood up from his place kneeling in the dirt of this AU's Waterfall, giggling to himself at whatever the echo flower he'd been listening to had said. His smile fell away and his giggling stopped as he registered the look Error was fixing him with, and he swallowed nervously at the near glare he was receiving. 

"Yeah, Error? W-What's up?" Ink asked, fidgeting a little nervously in place as he came to stand before his mentor and stared down at the ground, his mind already beginning to wander a little, despite his best efforts. Had he messed something up again? Maybe Error didn't like how cheery he was? He couldn't help that, though--yellow was his favorite color of paint to consume! 

A loud snapping of fingers in front of Ink's face got his attention back on Error properly at once, and also opened a portal back to the Anti-Void, which caused Ink to begin trembling a little. He hated going back home after one of his little outings that Error allowed every week in order to keep the artist from actually losing his mind to fear and the blank, white nothing of that place. And Ink especially hated going back home after finding out that he was trouble for something or other--punishments were never dealt swiftly or easy to forget about afterwards, even for someone with such a poor memory. Ink felt his femurs and radii stinging as he followed Error through the portal just thinking about punishments, absently rubbing at his scarred bones as he walked, the phantom pains a decent distraction from the white for the moment.

" ~~I hope you're aware enough to know that you're getting punished again. Do you know why?~~ " Error was as blunt as always, rounding on Ink the moment they were back home and the portal was closed behind them, cutting off the peaceful and colorful surrounds of Waterfall and leaving the duo trapped in the blank white nothing again. His arms were crossed over his ribcage, odd-colored eyelights fixed unerringly on Ink's face, one foot tapping the floor slightly in impatience. 

"Heh, f-funny thing about my memory...! It just, um, keeps forgetting to work!" Ink blurted with an awkward little laugh, lightly tapping the side of his own head for emphasis. Error did not look impressed in the slightest, and sighed at Ink as he uncrossed his arms and pointed at his pupil rather aggressively.

" ~~This! This is what I hate about you, Ink! You cannot ever take anything seriously, can you?~~ " Error snapped, actually getting Ink to flinch in the process. Without really being conscious of doing so, Ink protectively put his hands over his bandolier of vials, which was an action Error instantly zeroed in on. " ~~So, are those stupid paints to blame for your continued idiocy?~~ " he asked in a much milder tone than before, raising a brow bone questioningly. " ~~Maybe I should dispose of them...?~~ "

"Please don't!!" Ink blurted, his grip on his bandolier getting a little tighter on instinct. "You know I hate being unable to feel--I'd do anything else you tell me to if I get to keep these!"

Error's expression very slowly shifted from his deep frown and into a rather scary little smile as he took a step towards Ink, then another. " ~~Anything else?~~ " he pressed, and Ink nodded at once. Error's smile got a little wider, and it almost reminded Ink of his own scary smile he could sometimes pull off. " ~~Then I have a different punishment in mind for you today. Hold out your hands, I promise I won't take your paints this time.~~ "

Ink shakily held out his hands, and blinked in confusion as Error used strings to lightly pull his hands closer together and slightly cup his fingers. A moment later he understood why, as a little cloth doll fell into his grasp from the strings above them, though now he was even more confused. The doll resembled Dream in a rather uncanny way, even adorned with an absolutely tiny crown and a little cape of his own.

"What is this?" he asked Error quietly, watching as his mentor slumped into his beanbag and sighed in exasperation at him again. " ~~It's a voodoo doll, Ink. Your punishment is to hurt one of your dear little friends, rather than me hurting you by taking your vials away. Do whatever you want to him, as long as it doesn't kill him or injure him to the point of dusting. Are we clear?~~ "

Ink stared down at the tiny figure in his hand, murmuring a little 'sorry' to the doll of Dream before he wrapped his fingers around its neck and _squeezed_ for a few seconds, cutting off his friend's air supply and likely forcing the positive guardian to collapse against a wall or something, clutching at his throat in confusion. After he let go of his friend's neck, Ink pulled a small pencil out of one of his pockets and stabbed it into Dream's arms and legs haphazardly, knowing that the pencil would be too dull to cause major damage, but it should still cause pain.

He could hear Error opening a viewing portal in the background and giggling about something he was watching, but assuming it was Undernovella, Ink ignored it and kept stabbing at Dream wherever he could reach, finding the process oddly cathartic after a little while. He almost forgot that this was a punishment by the four minute mark of stabbing his friend's voodoo doll with the pencil, even hitting him in the button eyes on accident more than once. Ink let out a little squeak of surprise when Dream's doll was yanked out of his grip by strings, but a tiny smile tugged at his face as a doll that looked a lot like Blue was placed in his hand.

He liked stabbing these dolls with his pencil...it was so calming, a good distraction from the white everywhere. Maybe he could ask Error about doing this more often, and not just as a punishment?


End file.
